Final Shuttle Crew Pays Tribute to Apollo 11 Moon Landing

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As the astronauts flying on NASA's final space shuttle mission
prepare for their return to Earth tomorrow (July 21), they took a
moment to pay tribute to another historic space milestone: the
42nd anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong became the
first man to step foot on the lunar surface, followed by Lunar
Module pilot Buzz Aldrin.

"It's kind of interesting to be here on the final night of a
shuttle mission. We don’t quite know what to think, we're just
trying to take it all in," Ferguson said just before the his
crew's sleep period.

The dramatic events of July 20, 1969 achieved Kennedy's goal, and
over the course of the Apollo program, five subsequent missions
eventually landed astronauts on the lunar surface. In total, 12
ambassadors have had the unique privilege of leaving their boot
prints on a world beyond Earth.

The last Apollo moon mission, Apollo 17, launched in December
1972, and the program officially ended in 1975.

Ferguson and his crewmates, pilot Doug Hurley and mission
specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim, launched on the final
mission of NASA's space shuttle program on July 8. Atlantis and
its crewmates delivered critical supplies and hardware during its
13-day mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis is scheduled to land on Thursday (July 21) at 5:56 a.m.
EDT (0956 GMT).

After 30 years of flying the shuttles, NASA is retiring its
three-orbiter fleet to focus on deep-space exploration missions
to destinations like an asteroid and Mars.

You can follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter
@denisechow.
SPACE.com Senior Writer Clara Moskowitz ( @ClaraMoskowitz )
contributed to this report. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in
space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.